The present invention relates generally to voice messaging, and more particularly, to a system and methodology that enables a caller to retract a voice message from a called party's voice mailbox prior to retrieval by the called party.
Voice messaging systems for sending and receiving messages between users that are subscribers of the system are well known in the art. A “subscriber” is a person that has actively subscribed to the voice messaging system by creating either (1) a voice mailbox and/or (2) a billing relationship with the provider where the Subscriber agrees to pay money, either directly or indirectly through the purchase of other services, for use of the voice messaging system.
A voice mailbox is a storage area within the voice messaging system that is addressable by a number. The number selected to address the voice mailbox may be any number, such a number coinciding with the subscriber's telephone number. The voice mailboxes of typical prior art voice messaging systems require that the subscriber both (1) periodically call into the system to determine if there are any messages in the mailbox, and (2) call into the system to listen to messages. Most people, however, already have separate voicemail systems or answering machines that answer the telephone and record messages from live callers. As such, these prior art voice messaging systems create yet another mailbox that both senders and/or receivers must check in addition to their existing answering machine or separate voicemail system.
Examples of a subscriber billing relationship include, but are not limited to, a monthly subscription fee, the purchase of related or unrelated services such as local telephone calling or long distance calling, or the outright purchase of a voice messaging system (hardware or software) through either an installment sale or single payment. It is through these and other types of billing relationships, or by creating a mailbox as described above, that people actively subscribe to become subscribers to prior art messaging systems.
After actively subscribing to the voice messaging service and/or creating a separate mailbox, a subscriber can send and receive messages with other subscribers by calling into the system, logging into the particular mailbox and then creating and sending messages to mailboxes of other subscribers within the same voice messaging system.
In an exemplary application, a subscriber who has previously subscribed to the voice messaging service, places a telephone call into the voice messaging system. The subscriber then signs into his or her voice mailbox, records a message for an intended recipient, and enters a telephone number of the intended recipient. The voice messaging service then determines whether the recipient is a subscriber to the voice messaging service. If the recipient is a subscriber, then the voice messaging system deposits the voice message in the recipient's voice mailbox. The recipient can then access the voice message by calling into the voice messaging system in a conventional manner. If the recipient is not a subscriber, the voice messaging service may call the recipient and simply play the recorded message.
There are often times when a message is left for a recipient and it is subsequently determined that the message was either sent in error or that the sender decides that the message should not have been sent. A sender might leave a message in the heat of the moment, and then regret having done so with the desire to retract the message. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a system and methodology whereby a sender can retract a message left for a recipient.
An example of a prior art system that enables an originator to retract a message prior to delivery is the AT&T Audix® Voice Messaging System. In this expedient, the sender's message is created in the sender's own mailbox prior to delivery, which enables the message to be cancelled prior to delivery.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,597, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, enables a user to cancel a sent message that has already been delivered to a recipient's mailbox prior to retrieval by the recipient. In the disclosed system, the message originator tags the message with a numeric code that functions as a message identifier. The originator of the message can access the recipient's mailbox by supplying the message originator tag, and then exercise control over the disposition of the message. One disadvantage of this system is that a message recipient must enable the message retrieval feature.
It would be desirable to provide a system and methodology whereby a calling party can cancel a sent message prior to retrieval by the message recipient without the need to specifically tag or modify the original message, and without the need for the recipient to enable a feature to permit callers to retrieve their messages. In addition, it would further be desirable to enable a calling party to cancel such a message after the calling party has terminated the original call that left the message.